THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to navigate the pains and pitfalls She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no response. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal plan, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when women go on dates with guys merely to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she certainly fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all of the dates I had gone until there: all 37 dates to be exact. How could women take advantage of me like that? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first location. As I matured in my internet dating, however, I understood that this was actually a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are three major levers in our lives which, if we pull them correctly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I discovered this first hand because in the past five years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once. I quit the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship novice. I was depressed. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a small voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you're not. You're going to kick online dating's ass!" I began to channel my distress into anger, and my anger into determination. I began to approach online dating like one big experiment. I started creating what I called,"The Process." In this blog post I will take you through the whole process I chose to master online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so that you can not just get dates, but maybe discover the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I should preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might need to be different than the below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet interesting people and do interesting things," you'll be more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you might end up finding that special person.